milkweed shawl

Before I left for Urbana over the weekend I purchased and printed Laura Chau's newest pattern, Milkweed Shawl. I started knitting it in a cotton yarn, but only had 4 of the 5 balls with me so I couldn't finish it this past weekend. I'll finish it soon, but in the meantime I picked up a skein of Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 2-ply to knit the same kerchief.


I enjoyed knitting this small shawl because of all the garter stitch and simple columns evolving into little diamond shapes at the end. I also really like the edging. It is not too pointy, but has some shape to it and the two far end points look like little wing tips.


I knit on US sz 4 bamboo circulars at Chris' apartment and during the whole train ride back to Chicago. The train was an hour late leaving Urbana, but that didn't bother me because I got that much more uninterrupted knitting time. I arrived at 1pm with a lot of time until my 6pm rehearsal in Chicago so I walked the short distance from Union Station to Loopy yarns to "waste" some of that time. I got a couple awesome skeins of sock yarn, Nova Sock in a rusty orangey red and Casbah Sock in shades of blue. Then I did EZ's sewn bind off on the Milkweed Shawl and worked on some fingerless mitts at the shop. There were a couple of really nice employees to hang out and knit with too.

Anyway, I am working on a lot of projects and several of my own designs as well. Getting some of my patterns out will be slow going as I am new to that process, but I am really excited about how my designs are knitting up!

Here is another picture of Laura Chau's Milkweed. I have more pictures on my ravelry project page.

wwkip 2009

This year was my second time participating in World Wide Knit in Public Day. Last year I was at Daniela Johannsenova's event at her shop, Maschenkunst, in Cologne, Germany.
This year I took the train down to Urbana for the weekend and had a wonderful time knitting at the farmer's market for WWKIP day. We'll see where I end up next year.


Brigitte, the shop owner at Klose Knit, did a great job putting together this little event and there was a nice group of knitters that showed and several people at the farmer's market stopped to admire and ask questions which is great!



I started working on Laura Chau's (blog link) newest pattern, Milkweed (rav link), on the train this weekend and at the farmer's market. I love all the garter stitch in this shawl and the fun simple lace detail. It's fairly easy and the pattern is written out and charted clearly.


I'm knitting my version with Fiddlesticks Ecoknit Organic Cotton on US sz 8 needles. It's a worsted weight soft cotton so, it will be larger than the shawl in the pattern. I will most likely knit Milkweed again in fingering weight yarn though.

Anyway, how was everyone else's knit in public day. What did you do? Where did you knit?

chicago with ysolda

I had a great time on Wednesday meeting Ysolda. I got to relax and knit with her and several other awesome knitters at Nina in Chicago.

I admired her sample suitcase that she brought and shared some of my knitting.


This is Ysolda's Hap Blanket pattern (rav link) that I knit up in Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran and Plymouth Homestead.

I also just finished her Cairn hat and mitts earlier this week. Here's a picture of the mitts meeting the designer. : )

Ysolda didn't have any mitts with her sample suitcase so mine get to join her during the remainder of her US trip. The Cairn fingerless mitts (rav link) were knit with Lorna's Laces Green Line dk and Colinette Cadenza in the Large size with US 5 needles.


I made the 22" size of the Cairn hat (rav link) with Queensland Kathmandu dk and Noro Cashmere Island. Those two yarns made a wonderfully squishy pair. I especially like the garter stitch at the top of the this hat.


I started working on a garter stitch foot stool with a simple pattern found on this site.


While at the shop I recognized Eliza who is ifandany (rav profile link) and met her friend Jill who is Juneberrystar on ravelry. It was so cool meeting all these people in person.


After visiting at the shop the four of us had a delicious dinner at the Earwax Cafe in Wicker Park and there were cupcakes involved. mmm.

Anyway, I'm excited to see the people I met at Nina more this summer.

I'm aiming to get out the pattern for the botanic hat (rav link) later this month. It keeps getting pushed back because I was working on a couple other designs and I still need to work out a couple more sizes for the hat, but I did just finish knitting a version with a folded ribbed brim (rav link) with Malabrigo and Plymouth Boku.


I really love the way it hugs comfortably around my head and covers the ears.


This summer is sure to be a heavy knitting season. I seem to be working with just as much wool despite these warm days.